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Publication - Statistics

Results from the Scottish Agricultural Census: June 2023

Published
31 October 2023
From
Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands
Directorate
Environment and Forestry Directorate, +1 more … Agriculture and Rural Economy Directorate
Topic
Farming and rural

Final results from the 2023 June Agricultural Census on land use, crop areas, livestock and the number of people working on agricultural holdings. Estimates for 2022 are published in the supporting documents.

Supporting documents

Sheep numbers slightly decrease but remain stable compared to long term trend

The total number of sheep decreased by two per cent in 2023 to 6.61 million compared with the five year average. The number of breeding ewes decreased by two per cent to 2.51 million in 2023. Despite these small changes, sheep numbers remain relatively stable compared to the long term trend of the past 10 years.

Information on sheep numbers in this section has a gap in 2022 due to the survey being paused in 2022.

Figure 11: Number of lambs, ewes and other sheep between 2013 to 2023

Line chart with three lines to show the change in lambs, ewes and other sheep between 2013 and 2023. Lamb numbers have fluctuated slightly, with an increase between 2013 (3.11 million animals) to 2023 (3.20 million animals). Ewes and other sheep have been relatively stable across years with 2013 numbers at 2.62 million and 762,500 for ewes and other sheep, respectively. In 2023 there are 2.51 million ewes and 812,100 other sheep.

Contact

Email: agric.stats@gov.scot

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